Monthly Archives: April 2011

Nothing gets you pumped like a political rally! The passion radiating from supporters was intoxicating. Senator Andy Dinniman was the conductor of this wonderful political orchestra. He spoke with drive and conviction! He mentioned how we all want to stabilize the bill, Republic and Democratic, we just can’t agree on how. Dinniman stated how hindering education would only increase our problems. This, I agree.
Each speaker presented their reasons for keeping education a top priority for our country. A local West Chester University student showed his appreciation for all those who rallied to keep college affordable so far. He expressed the importance of affordable higher education, which will not be the case if Corbett’s Budget is passed. State universities will have their funding cut by 53%. If you get annoyed by alumni letters requesting donations now, imagine how many more you will get if this goes through.

It was stressed for people to understand that even though state taxes will not go up, local property taxes will. This is all a method of how you view it. In the end, you will have to pay money. If college funding is cut, you will have higher tuition rates. If programs are eliminated, you will have to pay for extra help for your child. The question is, which direction will help us grow and which will set us back?…
continue reading and see slide show at at Change Is Possible

…the problem with Fox is not that it’s conservative. It’s that it lies. Any discussion of its role in American political life is itself a lie if it rests on that foundation. When a “real” journalist … lends his name to Fox, he is simply empowering these lies. When journalists from media enterprises that profess to value truth defend Fox … they are enabling its lies. And when politicians, pundits and anyone else not formally employed by Rupert Murdoch or Roger Ailes appear on Fox without pointing out that they are there to tell the truth for once, then they, too, are participating in a scam at the bottom of which is not only the comforting of the wealthy at the expense of the rest of us but also the undermining of our democracy under the weight of a teetering tower of lies….

Now more than people need to work together to help repair the damages from this economic storm. The legislatures elected to lead the people, for the people, are not cutting it. Education is in dangerous water right now which should NOT be the case. It’s up to the people to fight for what we need!

Governor Corbett is proposing a budget cut that will create an array of issues. There is little money available, this is not news. People are unwilling to take tax increases and as promised, Corbett is proposing a plan to ensure that does not occur. The problem with this is we WILL be moving backwards. We have to stop listening to money and start paying attention to our children.

Below lists what Corbett’s Budget Cut will do and how it will affect us. Please read and follow up with research from your local school district website….

Please get out and help fight for education!

This budget cut will affect lower education as well as higher. Overall, we will all pay the price over time.

On Wednesday, April 27th, at 7 p.m., there is a rally in West Chester, on the steps of the Historic Chester County Courthouse at High and Market streets. This rally is promoted by State Senator, Andy Dinniman. Please come out! Numbers do count, your voice does matter. Our future generation matters.

PayUpNow.org is an online effort to “uncut” the cutbacks by promoting boycotts of corporations who pay little or no federal income tax.

According to a US Senate subcommittee report, eliminating tax havens could save $100 billion a year. That’s a conservative estimate. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) calculated that companies and individuals are holding up to $5 trillion in foreign tax havens.

Some of the worst offenders include General Electric (GE), which had $10 billion in profits and received a tax rebate; Bank of America, whose financial statements, according to a Bloomberg report, were “so delusional that they invite laughter”; oil giant Exxon, which paid no US taxes; and Citigroup, with an astounding 427 foreign tax havens.

The list goes on and on. In scanning the Government Accountability Office’s list of tax abusers, one is struck by the absence of companies WITHOUT tax havens, euphemistically referred to as “financial privacy jurisdictions.” Indeed, only 17 of the 100 largest US companies were listed as tax-haven-free.

The $100 billion per year lost to the taxpayers would cover most of the $140 billion budget deficit faced by the 50 states.

Several of the tax evaders are featured at PayUpNow.org, with brief summaries of their recent tax escapades, products to avoid and links to online forms or email addresses to corporate management….
continue reading at Truthout

Equality Fraternity Reality

Strong children

"It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken ones" —Frederick Douglass

Ignorance and Power

“Ignorance allied with power is the most ferocious enemy justice can have.” -- James Baldwin

Money is power….

"Money is power. In Congress, in state legislatures, in city councils, in the courts, in the political conventions, in the press, in the pulpit, in the circles of the educated and the talented, its influence is growing greater and greater. Excessive wealth in the hands of the few means extreme poverty, ignorance, vice, and wretchedness as the lot of the many.”
— Rutherford B. Hayes, President of the United States 1877-1881

Let the people think….

Let the people think they govern, and they will be governed.”
-- William Penn, Some Fruits of Solitude, 1693

Taxes & budgets

Women's rights

Dehumanization

"The propagandist's purpose is to make one set of people forget that certain other sets of people are human" - Aldous Huxley

Money is power

Money is power. In Congress, in state legislatures, in city councils, in the courts, in the political conventions, in the press, in the pulpit, in the circles of the educated and the talented, its influence is growing greater and greater. Excessive wealth in the hands of the few means extreme poverty, ignorance, vice, and wretchedness as the lot of the many.”
-- Rutherford B. Hayes, President of the United States (1877-1881)

Riots

“Riots are the language of the unheard” -- Martin Luther King, Jr.

Cost of War

Currently nearing $1.6 trillion, for Iraq and Afghanistan alone; watch it grow at Cost of War

The cause of war

"The cause of war is the preparation of war." -- W.E.B. DuBois

Presidential limits

"The president does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation."

--Barack Obama, 2007

Totalitarianism

“To be corrupted by totalitarianism, one does not have to live in a totalitarian country.”

-- George Orwell

Reimagining capitalism

"Politicians argue over big government so they can avoid talking about big capitalism" -- William Greider in The Nation

The problem with democracy

Progressive calendar

Click hereto view calendar of progressive events in and near Chester County.Agenda view (click in upper right of calendar) may be best.

Links to other sites:

Let the people think …

"Let the people think they govern, and they will be governed."
--William Penn, Some Fruits of Solitude, 1693

On humor

"When oppressed peoples have no other remedy they resort to humor" --E. O. Wilson

Koch Brothers index

For a list of all posts relevant to the Koch Brothers on this site, click here.

Truth and consequences

"If one tells the truth, one is sure, sooner or later, to be found out." -- Oscar Wilde

Power

“Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.”

-- Frederick Douglass, 1817-95

Schools, parents, democracy

“What the best and wisest parent wants for his child, that must we want for all the children of the community. Anything less is unlovely, and left unchecked, destroys our democracy.” -- John Dewey

Search

Liberty v. power

“The love of liberty is the love of others; the love of power is the love of ourselves.”
-- William Hazlitt, 1778-1830

On war

"No matter what political reasons are given for war, the underlying reason is always economic." - A. J. P. Taylor

Bill Moyers says

"The opposite of poverty is not wealth; it is justice."

Ain’t they got no shame

In the name of peace
They waged the wars
Ain't they got no shame

-- Nikki Giovanni

Need & Greed

"Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's need but not for every man's greed" -- Gandhi

Normalcy?

"If this is normalcy, I'd hate to see what real trouble is" - the late Daniel Shore on Iraq, Morning Edition, NPR, 3/29/08

Freedom and tyranny

"...So long as the people do not care to exercise their freedom,
those who wish to tyrannize will do so; for tyrants are active and ardent, and will devote themselves in the name of any number of gods, religious and otherwise, to put shackles upon sleeping men." --Voltaire, 1764

Thoughts on War

"Every war, when it comes, or before it comes, is represented not as a war but as an act of self-defense against a homicidal maniac." -- George Orwell

"You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you." -- Leon Trotsky

Total Cost of War

The cost of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars to Pennsylvanians alone is over $57,000,000,000 and to the entire US is over $1.3 trillion; now wouldn't that be helpful in Harrisburg and DC these days? Track our dollars' alarming and destructive disappearance at CostofWar.com

The American oligarchy

“The American oligarchy spares no pains in promoting the belief that it does not exist, but the success of its disappearing act depends on equally strenuous efforts on the part of an American public anxious to believe in egalitarian fictions and unwilling to see what is hidden in plain sight.” — Michael Lind, To Have and to Have Not